Using the 6800 as trial for the past week, here are some initial thoughts
(Please note this is my first WM device in a long time, my prior experience - brief - was with Win CE 1.1)

1. The phone looks very stylish with curvy lines and extremely pleasant grey finish. Screen is large (as compared to my Treo 700p) with good brightness and excellent resolution (QVGA) - have not used on sunlight, has been rainny lately. Side by side is thinner, shorter and lighter than the Treo.

2. The phone is slippery and anticipate some problems with this. Battery cover is extremely poor, very thin and flimsy will likely fail even with best of care. The keyboard snaps easily into place and back, feels secure but surely with frequent use will become loose. Keyboard has large rectangular slightly raised keys, takes some getting-used-to after experiencing the Treo, but very usable design. The keyboard's backlighting scheme is very pleasant and effective.

3. Memory is certainly plentiful (though you can never have enough of that) with ample ROM for program storage and standard RAM capacity. With all programs closed, the RAM is just over 22MB; with most included programs open is just above 10MB and still quite snappy.

4. For those asking, the transition time from portrait to landscape when opening the keyboard is quick, around a second or less. Apparently the 6700 was very slow in this transition.

5. Ringtones are few and not too exiting. The ringtones have a rather anemic volume and tone to them but seems easy enough to add new ones. Volume of ringer/earpiece/speaker are a bit low for my taste - better than the Treo w/o VolumeCare, but lower than a "dumbphone".

6. Don't like much the included Messaging application, email is OK. The phone dialer, while functional, seems a bit too plain to me - I have used TakePhone for several years now. Any suggestion for a better third-party dialer like TakePhone?

7. On-Handed uasbility is there but can not hold a candle to the Treo. The wheel is great for navigating menus and making most selections. The five-way navigation switch is good, but not as good as the Treo's. I have found a number of menu selections that can not be "reached" with either the wheel or the navigation button - poor OS integration here - and require a tap. With this device using the stylus is necessary.

8. I did have second thoughts about having to use the keyboard for every little text input needed throughout the day. Then I discovered than WM offers a input pad virtually identical to graffiti - I was a heavy graffiti user before I got the Treo and missed it much. Now I am in love again, I foresee my use of the external keyboard will be minimal.

9. Wi-Fi was one of the major reasons for this trial and after trying it I am certainly impressed with the ease of connection and good reception. Surfing the web or receiving email is a breeze. The internet experience is so much faster as compared to my Treo 700p, it has really blown me away. I can only wonder what I could do with a better browser.

10. The screen is large and very sharp as discussed above, after changing the awfull yellow scheme, I am LOVING the Today screen. Looking for worthy plug-in's to add already. On the negative, having to dig on the menus for every program is tedious and inefficient, looking for a good program launcher to allow me to organize and launch my most used applications from the screen with a single tap - any suggestions?

11. The camera has 2MP, slightly better than the Treo's yet pictures taken with good lighting are sharper and with good saturation, better than my Treo's - as good as you can get with a phone camera I mean. The camera offers a "flash" which is quite useless, also records short (30-sec) video clips with sound. One neat thing is when taking photos on landscape orientation, the shutter is on the upper right corner allowing the phone to operate much like a regular compact digital camera.

12. The Micro-SD is certainly a point of contention to most but this is the way things will go from now on - cards will get smaller as devices shrink. The card seats on a well at the bottom of the device, recessed making it difficult to "pop-out" by accident while carring the device around. In order to remove it you have to press with fingernail to make it pop, sometimes a bit difficult. The stylus is on the bottom and even when it seats tight now, is likely to become looser with continued use being prone to get lost I fear.

13. Someone indicated the power button location is ackward, I like it this way; I have pressed the red button on my Treo for more a second at times "triggering" the radio power-down cycle by mistake. What I have trouble with is understanding the locking function, still "playing" with it but not as intuitive as KeyGuard on the Treo. What I REALLY miss is a hard button to turn vibrate mode on-off "on the fly", instead this functions requires a screen tap or a menu search.

14. Bugs me a bit that the USB on the phone is a proprietary design requiring an adapter to connect a standard mini-USB cable. That means more adapters and cable to have around to charge/sync/hear music. Also the IR port being on the bottom of the unit will make using the phone as a remote cumbersome to say the least.

The 6800 is certainly an impressive device with excellent features and great potential but is somewhat weak in the one-handed operation department. Despite that I feel is a device worth looking at for anyone considering the move.

So far I really like the device, but is early to say if I will adopt it. I will continue my testing of telephony features and quality next week and post an update of my results.

And there you have it, first impressions from a WM noob... please bear with me if I happen to ask one too many dumb questions about WM in the future.

EDIT 1: After spending more time making/receiving calls my initial impressions were premature and somewhat inaccurate. I am a bit hard of hearing, having said that I can now say that the ringer and earpiece volume are very adequate for me even in moderately noisy environment. The call quality is very good so far on both ends.

Last edited by TreoNewt; 06/24/2007 at 01:51 PM.
Reason: Last minute corrections and additions...

I will say that the wifi is much improved over the 6700 I tried out. I could not even get it to connect to my protected home wifi. The 6800 connected with minimal configuration, which was a nice change. I tried the mspeed.dslreports.com and got 1.4mb/s download...quite impressive.

Using the 6800 as trial for the past week, here are some initial thoughts
(Please note this is my first WM device in a long time, my prior experience - brief - was with Win CE 1.1)

1. The phone looks very stylish with curvy lines and extremely pleasant grey finish. Screen is large (as compared to my Treo 700p) with good brightness and excellent resolution (QVGA) - have not used on sunlight, has been rainny lately. Side by side is thinner, shorter and lighter than the Treo.

2. The phone is slippery and anticipate some problems with this. Battery cover is extremely poor, very thin and flimsy will likely fail even with best of care. The keyboard snaps easily into place and back, feels secure but surely with frequent use will become loose. Keyboard has large rectangular slightly raised keys, takes some getting-used-to after experiencing the Treo, but very usable design. The keyboard's backlighting scheme is very pleasant and effective.

3. Memory is certainly plentiful (though you can never have enough of that) with ample ROM for program storage and standard RAM capacity. With all programs closed, the RAM is just over 22MB; with most included programs open is just above 10MB and still quite snappy.

4. For those asking, the transition time from portrait to landscape when opening the keyboard is quick, around a second or less. Apparently the 6700 was very slow in this transition.

5. Ringtones are few and not too exiting. The ringtones have a rather anemic volume and tone to them but seems easy enough to add new ones. Volume of ringer/earpiece/speaker are a bit low for my taste - better than the Treo w/o VolumeCare, but lower than a "dumbphone".

6. Don't like much the included Messaging application, email is OK. The phone dialer, while functional, seems a bit too plain to me - I have used TakePhone for several years now. Any suggestion for a better third-party dialer like TakePhone?

7. On-Handed uasbility is there but can not hold a candle to the Treo. The wheel is great for navigating menus and making most selections. The five-way navigation switch is good, but not as good as the Treo's. I have found a number of menu selections that can not be "reached" with either the wheel or the navigation button - poor OS integration here - and require a tap. With this device using the stylus is necessary.

8. I did have second thoughts about having to use the keyboard for every little text input needed throughout the day. Then I discovered than WM offers a input pad virtually identical to graffiti - I was a heavy graffiti user before I got the Treo and missed it much. Now I am in love again, I foresee my use of the external keyboard will be minimal.

9. Wi-Fi was one of the major reasons for this trial and after trying it I am certainly impressed with the ease of connection and good reception. Surfing the web or receiving email is a breeze. The internet experience is so much faster as compared to my Treo 700p, it has really blown me away. I can only wonder what I could do with a better browser.

10. The screen is large and very sharp as discussed above, after changing the awfull yellow scheme, I am LOVING the Today screen. Looking for worthy plug-in's to add already. On the negative, having to dig on the menus for every program is tedious and inefficient, looking for a good program launcher to allow me to organize and launch my most used applications from the screen with a single tap - any suggestions?

11. The camera has 2MP, slightly better than the Treo's yet pictures taken with good lighting are sharper and with good saturation, better than my Treo's - as good as you can get with a phone camera I mean. The camera offers a "flash" which is quite useless, also records short (30-sec) video clips with sound. One neat thing is when taking photos on landscape orientation, the shutter is on the upper right corner allowing the phone to operate much like a regular compact digital camera.

12. The Micro-SD is certainly a point of contention to most but this is the way things will go from now on - cards will get smaller as devices shrink. The card seats on a well at the bottom of the device, recessed making it difficult to "pop-out" by accident while carring the device around. In order to remove it you have to press with fingernail to make it pop, sometimes a bit difficult. The stylus is on the bottom and even when it seats tight now, is likely to become looser with continued use being prone to get lost I fear.

13. Someone indicated the power button location is ackward, I like it this way; I have pressed the red button on my Treo for more a second at times "triggering" the radio power-down cycle by mistake. What I have trouble with is understanding the locking function, still "playing" with it but not as intuitive as KeyGuard on the Treo. What I REALLY miss is a hard button to turn vibrate mode on-off "on the fly", instead this functions requires a screen tap or a menu search.

14. Bugs me a bit that the USB on the phone is a proprietary design requiring an adapter to connect a standard mini-USB cable. That means more adapters and cable to have around to charge/sync/hear music. Also the IR port being on the bottom of the unit will make using the phone as a remote cumbersome to say the least.

The 6800 is certainly an impressive device with excellent features and great potential but is somewhat weak in the one-handed operation department. Despite that I feel is a device worth looking at for anyone considering the move.

So far I really like the device, but is early to say if I will adopt it. I will continue my testing of telephony features and quality next week and post an update of my results.

And there you have it, first impressions from a WM noob... please bear with me if I happen to ask one too many dumb questions about WM in the future.

10. The screen is large and very sharp as discussed above, after changing the awfull yellow scheme, I am LOVING the Today screen. Looking for worthy plug-in's to add already. On the negative, having to dig on the menus for every program is tedious and inefficient, looking for a good program launcher to allow me to organize and launch my most used applications from the screen with a single tap - any suggestions?

Like already mentioned... one handed operation... Can't beat the Treo for that. One of the main reasons I dumped the 6700. Well that and it was a horrible phone. Good pda though. (Can't comment on the phone on the mogul)

Too early to say, but after the first charge I used the PDA part to look into programs, menus and other tweaks for a good three or four hour, next day did the sync and logged to Wi-Fi continuously for a good three to four hours plus another hour of exploring - have not used the phone part much yet.

After the above, almost two days from the original charge, it was ready for another charge.

Again is too early for me to say but from what I have seen, is about par with my other PDA/phones. Possibly when I start using the phone part more this will change.

There is an issue with Yahoo go. It interferes with the setup of the e-mail. I deleted yahoo go and e-mail configures well now. Too bad because I use it to sync my schedule over the air and it works great for me. Hopefully there will be an update of Yahoo go compatible with WM6.

3. Memory is certainly plentiful (though you can never have enough of that) with ample ROM for program storage and standard RAM capacity. With all programs closed, the RAM is just over 22MB; with most included programs open is just above 10MB and still quite snappy.

Wow, only 22 mb of ram with nothing open? Looking at my WX I have 32 mb. Suprising the new 6800 would have so little.

Another attribute of the mogul is that EVDO throughput is awesome. I am consistently getting over 1000 kbps. Never saw that type of speed with the Q and very rarely with the treo. (Sames areas, time etc- as scientific as it is going to get)

Background Info: In the course of my business day I use text messaging as my "pager" by having my answering service receive the call and produce a message with relevant information and send it via email as a text message to my phone.

My Problem: The 6800 comes with no suitable sound/ringtones to accomplish this task effiently. With the Palm Treo, the messaging application shared the ringers with the phone so the selection was better.

My Question: If I want to add a ringtone/sound to use with the messaging application which folder do I copy the file to? Also, what kind of sound file(s) can I use (wma, midi, mp3, etc.)?